Isolation of surface membranes from normal and exocytotic mutant strains of Paramecium tetraurelia. Ultrastructural and biochemical characterization.

A density gradient centrifugation method for the isolation of the surface membrane complex from Paramecium tetraurelia cells is presented. The resulting "pellicles" consist predominantly of the somatic cell membrane and the underlying alveolar membranes. Marker enzyme activities for other cell components are low and SDS-polyacrylamid-gel electrophoreses indicate the presence of only minor amounts of ciliary and secretory proteins. Pellicles were prepared from different strains: (a) Exocytosis-capable strains with the normal set of exocytotic organelles ("trichocysts") docked to the cell membrane (strains 7S, K 401, and 9-18 degrees C), (b) exocytosis-uncapable strains (although with normal trichocyst attachment: nd 9-27 degrees C, nd 6, nd 7) and (c) strain from tam 38 with empty docking sites and rare, defective, free trichocysts. A Ca2+-stimulated ATPase was present in the pellicles from all strains with Km (CA2+) values between 0.19 to 0.88 mM Ca2+ and Vmax between 286 to 787 nMoles Pi/mg protein/min. Km and Vmax was identical for all strains of group (a). Vmax was significantly lower for all strains of group (b) and still lower for group (c). Similar group differences were found for Km (except for strain nd 6). Freeze-fracture analysis shows that the disruption of the membrane-to-membrane attachments during fractionation is paralleled by the disarrangment of the regular arrays ("rings", "rosettes") of membrane-integrated particles.